Summary: Mr X complains Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council and Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust failed to adequately address his complaints about his sister’s care and care-planning. We will not investigate the complaint because it is late and we have not found a good reason to put that aside and investigate it now.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about care and support provided to his sister, Mrs Y, by Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council (the Council) and Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) between July 2021 and August 2022, and their subsequent handling of his complaint. In particular, Mr X complains the organisations failed to follow the relevant legislation and guidance and failed to adequately involve him in key discussions and decisions.

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The Ombudsmen’s role and powers

2. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and Health Service Ombudsman have the power to jointly consider complaints about health and social care. (Local Government Act 1974, section 33ZA, as amended, and Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, section 18ZA).
3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something an organisation has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended, and Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, section 9(4).)
4. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or
  (Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, section 3(2) and Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the written information Mr X provided to LGSCO and PHSO. I considered papers the Council and the Trust provided to us.
6. I considered LGSCO’s Assessment Code and PHSO’s guidance on deciding whether to investigate.
7. I shared a confidential draft copy of my provisional decision with Mr X and invited his comments on it. I considered all the comments I received in response.

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What I found

8. Mrs Y was admitted to hospital in July 2021. She remained there until August 2022 when she moved to a residential home for long-term care. During Mrs Y’s admission her capacity to make her own choices and decisions fluctuated. At times others made decisions about her care and treatment in her best interests. Discussions about Mrs Y’s long-term care included discussions about her financial situation and whether she would be responsible for paying a contribution toward the cost of her care.
9. Mr X’s complaint to the Ombudsmen relates to the organisations’ handling of his complaints, which ended in the middle of 2025. However, they are inseparably linked to his substantive complaints about failings in Mrs Y’s care, and about the way the organisations treated him, and communicated with him, in 2021 and 2022.
10. Mr X knew of his concerns at the time of the events. He said concerns regarding Mrs Y’s care were raised during her inpatient admission and in the weeks immediately following her discharge. Mr X also approached PHSO for advice in November 2021.
11. Therefore, Mr X’s complaints to the Ombudsmen, in September 2025, were made more than 12 months after his knowledge of his concerns. Complaints should be brought to the Ombudsmen within 12 months of the person becoming aware of their concerns. As such, the complaint is late.
12. Mr X said delays occurred when he had to wait for overdue responses to SARs, or where he needed to gather supporting documents or seek clarification on contradictory statements by the Trust. Mr X said he responded to each communication from the organisations in a timely manner.
13. Mr X said he began making SARs in 2023 and made his first formal complaint to the Trust – about its failure to adequately respond to his SARs – at the end of September 2024. Given the gap between the events (and Mr X’s knowledge of his concerns) and when he first made a SAR, delays in the Trust’s response to them cannot adequately explain why around three years passed between Mrs Y’s discharge and Mr X’s complaints to the Ombudsmen (and four years since her admission).
14. Overall, there is no compelling reason for the Ombudsmen to exercise discretion to look at Mr X’s complaint even though it is late. We will not consider Mr X’s complaint about the handling of his complaints by the Council and Trust even though this was brought to us in time. This is because we are not proposing to consider the substance of the complaint.
15. Mr X has noted concerns about the way the Trust has handled his SARs. The Information Commissioner’s Office (the ICO) is be the most appropriate organisation to consider these concerns.

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Decision

16. I have closed this case on the basis that the complaint has been made late and there is no reason to set the time limit aside, and because the ICO is better placed to consider complaints about response to SARs.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsmen

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman